NAMI Walk

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill had their annual walk yesterday, October 2, at Credit Island Park in Davenport. Here is our little team from the Church of Peace.

While we got some donations, the main purpose of fielding a team is to help reduce stigma and begin to treat mental illness, more and more, like other illnesses. Certainly, several members of our church have had bouts with mental illness.

So looking in Sunday's QC Times I noted that our little team made it front and center in their coverage of the NAMI Walk.

Book Nook Report

For the past few years, Church of Peace has brought the Book Nook to the primary students at the Rock Island Academy. Kids, families, and teachers all love it. Since the Academy is now K-6th grade, the school has asked us to expand the program to accommodate the intermediate students.

We stock our Book Nook cabinet with new books, and sell them to the children of low-income families for just 50 cents each. This is not a free give-away, but an affordable price which preserves the dignity of the families while allowing the children to choose their own books and build their own home libraries. Research indicates that homes with many books produce a higher level of learning and a greater love of reading.

We try our best to get the books the children are interested in at the lowest rice. Still, the actual cost of a new book is anywhere from $3 to $5, and we need to seek funding every year for our program. In order to expand our program to the intermediate grades, we will also need to build another rolling bookcase and stock it with books. That is why we are asking for an increased amount of money from last year.

Check out the following pages to read what some of the teachers at the Academy had to say about our program.

Thank you for your past funding of Book Nook and for your support this year.

Sue Spurgetis
Church of Peace


This is such a wonderful program! The students get so excited and anticipate it every year. As I was walking past the Book Nook stand this year, I realized that the program greatly benefits our increasing number of ELL students. Many of their parents speak little to no English and rarely leave their own neighborhoods to see out books for their children. The Book Nook program provides an affordable and convenient way to have these students begin their at-home libraries, who would otherwise have no books at home. Having books at home increases the speed in which the students learn English and acclimate to an English-speaking classroom.
So thank you and all those who provide this service!
Sincerely,
Stephanie Sanders
RIA


The service the Church of Peace provides through the Book Nook is incredibly valuable. Most of my students cannot afford to purchase books at the store or through a Scholastic Book Club. My students love the Book Nook and do their best to scrounge up $0.50 to purchase a book. You know they want to use the service when that 0.50 comes as a mixture of dimes, nickels, and pennies. They're not kidding when they tell me, "Miss Brannen! I found all of these nickels in the car!"
Thank you for taking the time to find the funds to provide this wonderful service to our students. We all appreciate your efforts!
Kelli Brannen
2nd Grade
Rock Island Academy

I love that you guys do this for our kids. Our kids are so excited to be able to purchase books on the Fridays you are here. You provide for our kids a chance to buy a book! Many of our kids do not have books at home. Our families may need the $5 it cost to purchase a book to put food on the table and books are not a priority. Book Nook also allows teachers to purchase books for students. For the past 5 years, I purchased a book for each of my kids at the end of each quarter, so those that don't ever get to buy will have something. Their eyes light up and they are so excited when they get their books!
Bless you all for making this a priority for our kids!
Jessica Bollman


I teach a Special Education Class for grades Kindergarten, 1 and 2. I am always amazed, even after many years of teaching, by the fact hat most of my kindergarten students come to me with little to no knowledge of books. They do not know how to handle books, how to turn pages, or that words on the pages have a meaning that tells the story. I know that many of my students do not have books in their homes. Within a few days of school, they are introduced to the magic and wonder that books and words hold. By the end of their first quarter, my kindergartners seem to not be able to get enough of books, words, and pictures.

Your Book Nook program certainly allows many of my students who come from homes with very limited resources to not only enjoy, but have the exciting opportunity to purchase their very own book. The look in my students' eyes when they approach your Book Nook shelves is truly a testimony to the good that your program does.
Thank you for your Book Nook program.
Carol A. Kossaris
Special Education Teacher
Rock Island Academy

My intermediate students have been asking me each time they see Book Nook if this is something that they will get to have the opportunity to do as well. They would love to have the opportunity to purchase books, too--especially since we are now in the same building and our students are actually seeing the Book Nook take place. I feel that this would be highly beneficial to students at all grade levels at our school.
Thanks for you consideration.
Jamie Braet, RIA, 3/4

Book Nook is a fantastic program! The Rock Island Academy students are thrilled to have the opportunity to purchase these wonderful books at such a low, affordable cost. Thank you so much for this invaluable program--that nurtures the RIA children's excitement for literacy!
Susan Murphy

New Baby Dedication

One of the families of the Light Mission Pentecostal Church, the group that shares our building, dedicated a new baby last Saturday afternoon, September 11, 2010. These are Kirundi speaking immigrants, whose homeland was Burundi. (Kirundi is a Bantu language with about 4.5 million speakers.)

They had invited me to the event to help pray for the baby, Johnson Willey Vincent.

Well, the first thing was the feast. We enjoyed several foods in the African style. There were bread balls, cooked beef, fried chicken, rice, a lightly cooked cabbage that was served over rice with beans. It was all quite good, and I am sure
to learn more about these foods as time goes on.

There were also a series of "formal" presentations. I mean that not as stiff events, but rather a sequence that has a form taken from the culture.

At one point I asked, "where is the baby." Well, apparently that is the first question of the day. The root of the event is to "show the baby" to the community, and it had been kept out of sight. The baby was soon brought out and the festivities began.

Another element in the sequence is for the father to make a speech, followed by the grandfather. The fellow in the yellow shirt holding the baby is the grandfather. He thanked and blessed God for this child's birth, and prayed for the baby as well.

Then the grandmother - the woman in the bronze colored outfit, along with other mature ladies from the community invited the mother forward to help show and teach her how to care for the baby. She is instructed on how to carry the infant on her back.

As one fellow said to me, "You Americans push your babies in front of you. We keep them close to us on our back."

You can see in the pictures I snapped that there are a number of other photographers as well, recording this "teaching moment" for posterity and for those far away. There was a lot of laughter and great good humor in these presentations.

When the young mom returned to her seat at the head table everyone there sang a little song, so it must be very well known. The woman who was translating for me said that it meant something like "see how much love the mother has as she cares for her baby, this is the kind of love God has for us."
One of the very last moments was when I was asked to pray for the baby. I asked the translator, "do I hold the baby?" She said, "no, just reach out your hands and touch the baby as the parents hold him." That was fine.

What a great day. I was honored and happy to be part of the dedication and "showing off" the baby. Once again I am reminded what a privilege it is to be a pastor and have a representative ministry through the church.

Compressor

It is one of those good news/bad news situations.



The bad news is that the compressor on our commercial refrigerator in the church kitchen gave out.



The good news is that it waited till the very last day of the summer meals program to do so. That day was Friday, August 13. What can I say?



So here is the technician reparing the refrigerator. It is certainly a speciality and few companies do the work.

Lights ON Resumes

Today is the first day of the resumption of the ELL (English Language Learners) Class here at the Church of Peace. Whenever something is beginning one hopes for a good attendance. And above is teacher Rachel with a fair sized group in the fellowship hall of the church. The extra feature of this particular class is that there is childcare provided for children too young for Head Start and school. So children are in appropriate childcare while parents are receiving instruction.

Here are leaders and students talking about registration.

This program is part of Lights On for Learning, and is a collaboration with Church of Peace, Rock Island School District 41, the Regional Office of Education, the Rock Island Library and Blackhawk College. It is a way of meeting the needs of new immigrants who live in our neighborhood and seeks to strengthen the educational experience of children in school.

In the Heights

One of the wonderful events of our California vacation was to see the musical In the Heights at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood in the evening of July 25. One of the special features of this particular performance was that Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the show, sang the lead.

A lot of musicals qualify as chestnuts, but this one came to Broadway only in 2008 - and won a Tony that year as well. For lots of info: http://www.intheheightsthemusical.com/

What I especially appreciated was the consideration of the experience of many Latino folks in a community. Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans. And, as musicals so often do, the portrayal was of how life is still about boy-meets-girl, family loyalty, friendships, and what constitutes home. In a moment of our history where Latino immigrants are being vilified and portrayed as a great threat to the nation, it is good to have another perspective presented with such charm and energy.

The music is terrific, and we bought the Grammy award winning CD - and listed to it as we drove across the country, from California to the Midwest.

Summer Activity Program

Today is the conclusion of the Summer Activity Program at the Church of Peace and the Rock Island Parks and Recreation programs at various area schools. In a few minutes I will run up to the park to participate in a lunch of hot dogs and ice cream where all these sites come together in one place for a celebration.

We will continue to serve lunch for the next two weeks here at the church and at Century Woods. There has been remarkable growth in the number of lunches at Century Woods. We began the summer with about six children. It has grown to about 60 meals a day! We hope to do some enrichment activities at Century Woods and here at church for the next two weeks, and then school will resume.

It has been a very active summer so far.